Jordall’s sense of dread grew as the clock counted down to one of the worst things he had to do as the head of the 8200 Cryptological Unit of Mossad. He had kept quiet for two weeks, praying for God to give him the courage to break the Korean sisters’ heart. He was going to tell them not to pursue the most critical, scientific, and elegant discoveries of the last decade. He hated being the bearer of bad news.

There was a nagging sense banging on the door of his intuition. Was there more to the AI’s unexpected answer to the sisters’ programming? Jordall had checked their math at least five times. He even sneaked time on their unit’s experimental quantum computer, and the math still came out the same. When he crunched the numbers the old-fashioned way on a chalkboard. He got a different answer. One that, at first glance, should have produced a logical result, the algorithm was pointing to.

The math produced a micro black hole. A human-sized hole you could see through. A hole that was showing random people and places. Jordall’s curiosity was almost overwhelming. He wanted to continue the sisters’ research himself. But every time, he couldn’t resist the words the Angel had said.

Tower of Babel 2.0? To Jordall’s mind, that implied a Pandora’s Box-level of uncontrollable apocalypse. That thought trumped his curiosity every time. So much so that he now keeps that piece of paper with their original math written down, along with the AI’s conclusion, in the unit’s walk-in vault with all the other protocol binders, operation plans, and an extensive library of different files that should never see the light of day. Some documents and research could be the key to strategic military success or to a company’s dominant market position for the foreseeable future.

Jordall looked at the time on his computer bank and decided he needed food and sleep. His problem was finding time to eat and sleep within the six hours before he was scheduled to return here to chair one of the new tweaks to the F-35’s targeting software programming. Most militaries that operated the F-35 had learned to covet Israel’s ability to analyze and upgrade military hardware and software.

On Jordall’s way out of the building, he had a nagging sense that he was walking away from a disaster waiting to happen and an urge to run back to his office to check on the slip of paper. But once his head hit the pillow, he fell sound asleep.

After a quick breakfast of an egg sandwich and a double espresso, he left for the office. Jordall walked into a hurricane of fear. Someone had broken into the office, leaving the vault door wide open. He sat down in one of the visitor’s chairs to calm down and let his stomach settle.

Apocalypse! Jordall sat with his head in his hands and stared at the floor until the presence of General Alon, plopping his body in the other chair next to him, caused him to look up. General Alon’s face was white with the implications of this breach.

“This building and our offices are some of the most protected spaces in all of Israel.” General Alon said with a tinge of unbelief.

“My mind has been on overdrive since I walked in on this!” Jordall croaked. “The security folks told me they can’t find any evidence of forced entry. Whoever was there had to have our codes and know how to disable the building’s cameras. There’s just no evidence at all.”

“Jordy. You know there’s going to be an official investigation with something like this. You will also be their top subject. You were the last one to leave the building, the logs say. Did you hear anything or see anything?” General Alon put his hand on Jordall’s shoulder and gently turned his head to see his face. Jordall’s eyes were red from crying and the stress.

“Jordy, your record will stand impeccable. I would imagine the investigators will need your expertise more than their blind suspicions.”

Jordall turned his body to completely face the General. “When I went home last night, the moment I left the building, I had an overwhelming sense to go back into the office. I ignored it as just overwork and exhaustion. And no, I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary before I left for home. I’m so used to late nights with the department heads working late also that I was grateful for a night alone in the office. I drifted off to sleep soundly. Our most sensitive projects and plans were in a safe place. This is the worst thing that I could imagine for our unit.”

General Alon handed Jordal an official-looking document written by the head of the Mossad. It was an official order for Jordall and his staff to stand down until the investigation is finished.

General Alon took the document back and said, “I came down here to support you. If there is anything I can do for you or your staff, just let me know.”

Jordall looked back at the general with a new air of determination. “Okay, here’s my first request. Appoint me and a few of my prodigies to work out of your office. We can’t just stop working, General. There are some very time-sensitive and tactically sensitive projects we need to finish. If we walk away now, our actions will create a cascade of disasters for our special operations community.”

General Alon smiled and said, “Now that’s the Jordy I know. But I will need to figure out how to get this approved. Give me some time to work this out, and I will get back to you.”

The General stood and made his way past all the technicians combing every inch of the office and then past the members of Shin Bet guarding the doors.

Jordall stayed sitting there watching the forensics teams work. It was like he didn’t exist until a few of the security team assigned to guard the building walked up to him and quietly said, “Please come with us. You are under house arrest. But we were told by General Alon not to make a scene.”

Jordall knew the head of security for the complex. Taneth was a decorated tank commander. They’d had lunch together a few times and shared stories about their lives in the IDF. Taneth walked next to Jordall and said, “Sorry about this, Jordy, but this thing has created a firestorm of CYA in the upstairs offices.”

“Tan, I get it. And it should rightly cause a wake-up call. But thanks for the sympathy. I just want to get to work to save my research and catch whoever managed to pull this off.” Jordall gave Taneth a friendly fist bump.

The elevators were down the hall and around the corner. Only one elevator reached the floor where Jordall’s team worked. The elevators to the decision-makers’ areas had identification systems known only to a few in the security and Taneth teams. There were the expected retinal scanner, key card slot, and full-body profile scan, which included an X-ray.

Most of the people in the building never came up here. But, for those who had the need to know, even they weren’t aware of the depth of the profile scan. It could detect whether the person scanned had gained weight since their last visit. A specific process was required to access this floor. A special training session was held to ensure the potential visitor understood the level of secrecy required for this visit.

Taneth and the other security guard completed the required sequence of identity checks and stepped aside to allow Jordall to enter the elevator. As Jordall settled against the back of the elevator car, he began to feel as if reality was peeling back. He found himself standing up on the roof of the complex, standing face-to-face with the Angel who had visited him a couple of weeks ago.

Jordall didn’t understand what was happening. He didn’t even know the name of the occurrence. He was experiencing a waking vision.

The Angel spoke as soon as Jordall’s legs steadied and said, “Jordall, you can relax. I’m here to explain the break-in and theft of your files. I did that. The Father saw how tempted you were to claim that discovery. So we just removed the temptation. Existence cannot tolerate even the concept of any kind of chance of this happening. Unfortunately, The Twins weren’t the only ones to discover this. There were nine other instances of this math-path through this dimensional wormhole. We need your and Mossad’s help to find and destroy any evidence of this discovery.”

Jordall and his team were being tasked with an impossible request.

The Angel saw the shock on Jordall’s face and said, “Remember, if God gives you a task, He will give you everything you need to complete it. You just need to have faith.”

Jordall found himself sitting before General Alon, surrounded by a team of medics trying to bring him back to reality.